Sacrificial Surrender
by Letsnottalkaboutitaye
Summary: No one had a perfect family life. What made Lovino's any different? Who said mental disorders and Calabrian mafias didn't mix? Rating may go up. NOT A ROMANCE. OOC; AU; HU; MP?; AV
1. Warnings and prelude

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

WARNING

DO NOT READ THIS FIC IF YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE STORY, READ THE OTHER STORIES OF THIS SERIES

THIS ONE DEALS HEAVILY WITH CONTEMPLATED SUICIDE/CASUAL DISPLAY OF SUICIDE

 **NO MATTER WHAT THE ANSWER IS** **NOT** **TO KILL YOURSELF**

 **I DON'T GIVE A FUCK** ** _HOW_** **ROMANTIC IT SEEMS**

 **DON'T BE A FUCKTARD**

 **REACH OUT**

 **FUCK**

* * *

 _I don't wear disguises_

 _I stand here godless_

 _I strive to be incomplete_

 _Because if I knew what it meant to be complete_

 _Then I would stumble_

 _And I would fall_

 _I would forget what it meant to have drive_

 _I would forfeit all the contrivances and never be able to thrive_

 _I would wallow in the madness_

 _That is contemporary_


	2. Failure By Design

_"I'm sorry."_

 _"Wait!"_

 _Strangers, forever surrounding themselves with impracticality, with irony and desolation. Strangers that can only be happy when they've pushed themselves so far, to the breaking point, because at least there, on the line not-yet-crossed but fully realized, at least there they have an option. Strangers._

* * *

Lovino sat with his elbow on his knee and his face upon his hand looking, rather distastefully, upon the closed door just beyond the archway that led into the kitchen. She wasn't always bad, he decided silently, rolling the fallen pencil eraser between two fingers as he mulled over his thoughts; no, she wasn't. Yesterday was good. The way that she cooked dinner, the way that her and Pa had smiled at each other, his younger brother's long tangents about absolutely-nothing going without harassment, it had all been _good_. Today, not-so-much. Feliciano and he had come home, thrust into the front row, as the new addition to their parents' armature drama aired.

"So much yelling, so little plot," he groaned to himself. Throwing his attention back to his responsibilities—a lengthy essay on the Italian Civil war—he squinted through the darkness. His only light source tonight would be the dying embers in their soot filled hearth. He didn't mind, but the squinting hurt his eyes after a while.

His pencil hesitated, lead garnishing the page. He hadn't spelt that right. For sure that was wrong. He stared at the word for a long moment, much longer than he had meant to, before fixing his eyes closed and stifling a groan. His teacher's advice rang through his head, telling him that mistakes were okay, that a perfectionist is no good because they never get anything done—and what's the point of something perfectly incomplete? Slowly counting to ten, calming down his nerves that had suddenly spiked and tensed into something he was starting to recognize as _anxiety_ , Lovino opened his eyes again. He still had the rest of the week before the paper was due—three days. He didn't have to worry about little things tonight.

Taking a breath, he nodded to himself, lips set, determined, as he skipped over his _little mistake_ and continued writing. He would have gone to search for his dictionary, but he knew that Feliciano was likely already asleep in their room, and really could not deal with the kid's midnight-chats. Still, he couldn't help but stop more-often-than-not to reread what he had written. He found himself revising what he had a multitude of times, his paper growing thin from all the erasing.

The house echoed eerily. It was new—well, new to them—and they had yet to unpack. Lovino knew the drill. Move in, unpack, pack up, move again. Whether it was because his mother's paranoia or his father's inability to keep a job longer than six months, Lovino wasn't sure. Whatever it was had transferred Lovino to a brand-new school during midterms. Lovino had been shuffled into pretty much the same class as his last school—year eight really didn't change much school-to-school—so it was easy to adapt, but the teacher he had been stuck with insisted that he write a paper instead of taking the actual midterm test. Lovino had been offended. "I can pass! I'll probably blow the rest of these idiots out of the water!" But, she had insisted, saying something or another about wanting to get a feel for his voice.

Whatever that meant.

Lovino had recently been reading Claudio Pavone's works on the Italian Civil War and women's rights, so he had decided to write about that. A stolen copy of _A History of the Italian Resistance_ propped itself against the step of the fireplace, an easy enough access point so that Lovino could flip through it.

He thought Pavone's arguments were interesting. The three wars raging simultaneously in Italy being the Civil, the Class, and the Patriarchy; instead of them all being grouped into one. It talked about the Italians fighting for the second World War, the loss of hope in the fighters, and the sacrifices they took to take a stand. An expert that truly hit Lovino, to which he read again, was:

 _The Italian soldier will fight no more under the orders of Mussolini, either for Hitler or against Hitler, not even for Italy. The Italian soldier will fold his arms and let himself be killed by the enemy in front or by the rifles of the Blackshirts watching over him from behind._

Lovino could feel a subtle pang in his heart. Inspiration. He often dreamed of soldiers and rioters, thinking them noble in their causes. They were doing something meaningful, he decided. To die so imperiously for armistice, the end of the war, put their lives on a sort of pedestal. It spoke volumes.

After a while longer of writing, Lovino packed up his stuff and went to bed. He and his younger brother shared a room. It was littered with boxes, clothes that they had torn from said boxes, a single full-sized mattress, and a bed box leaning against a desolate dresser they continued to lug house-to-house, despite never really using. Lovino wondered quietly how long they would be here. Six months? Eight? Would they make it a year before the landlord decided his mother was rude, before his father got fired, before his mother become paranoid about something and demanded that they relocate? The longest they had been anywhere was two years, but it didn't seem like that trend was going to keep at it. The last place they lived only lasted three months—hence why they were now struggling through midterms in a brand-new school.

Sighing he laid down, pulling his blanket from beneath his brother with a grumble. "Move your fat ass."

Feliciano grumbled something, pushing outward, catching Lovino in the nose and pushing him close to falling off the mattress. "Oi!" Lovino growled, pushing away the outstretched palms. "Your fucking side!"

Feliciano was four years younger than him. Whether Lovino was the mistake, or Feliciano, or perhaps both, was irrelevant, because they were both here. Feliciano took on his mother's features with brighter hair and eyes and slim features—or, at least they would have been slim if their mother wasn't always filling him with meaningless carbs. It was her way to coddle her baby. Lovino wondered how long it would be before the nine-year-old would either be too fat to properly function or finally start listening to Lovino and stop eating everything he's given. It wasn't really a question who took up more of the bed, but Lovino still insisted that they split it evenly or Feliciano sleep on the floor.

Pushing his brother towards the wall, hating how fast a sleeper the kid was, Lovino growled a few more profanities before finally being able to settle. Shoving his face in his pillow, he drifted, words from his essay, and words that could become his essay, Pavone's passages and opinions, and even more words that started a debate with himself to try and better understand the Resistance and the Fascists, clouded his head. They were all so jumbled and interesting that, though his body was calm, and though his arm had already started with needles and pins under his head, he just couldn't fall asleep. Civil Wars became so much more. At times they became too real. At other times they were something of a poem he wished he had enough energy to get up and write down. Whatever it became, it was distracting and wouldn't let him go.

* * *

The morning was groggy. It was just like every other morning Lovino had been too excited about the ideas in his head during the night—which seemed to be most nights, as, unless he was tired enough to fall asleep doing something, he didn't seem to get very good sleep at all—with his brother's voice sounding just _that_ much more annoying, his mother's absence being just _that_ much more apparent, and his father's footsteps or snores being just _that_ much more alarming. It was dreadful. He wished that he could smile like Feliciano on mornings like these. Instead, his core felt empty and his body wanted nothing more but to collapse.

Nevertheless, he gathered his supplies and readied himself for another day.

The town they had relocated to was small, country. Their house leaned and swayed, large windows and clicking wood, ancient. A huge yard surrounded it, but very little grew in it. Grass patches and gravel, mostly. There was a vast willow tree standing beside the house, doubling its size with waterfalling branches and leaves. As Lovino and Feliciano exited the house on the way to school, its branches shuffled across the ground.

The elementary and middle school were only a few blocks away from their house. The elementary school was first; a squat grey building, sitting at one-story with shrouded windows. Feliciano grabbed for Lovino's hand.

"Stop," Lovino demanded.

The kid's cheeks meditated another piece of toast. "I don't want to go to school today," he sniffled. "I don't like my teacher or my new classmates."

"I thought you did? You were saying that your teacher was very nice."

"He is, but I liked my old teacher better!" A car passed them as they climbed the hill to the school. Lovino walked close to a fence, running his hands across the thin metal bars and over the vining flowers that grew around them. The house that the fence belonged had much greener grass than his, though the lot was smaller. An old woman sat outside her door, talking sweetly to a younger woman who stood on the doorstep with a shrugged bag and tousled hair. As they walked past it Lovino stared. There was a doghouse, but no dog; a set of gardening tools shrewd by a small, white shed that's door was propped open; a good many trees that offered both shade and blooming flowers. Lovino wondered what fruit would be growing so late in the year.

The fence continued onto the next house, dusted, rusted grey metal. It stretched all the way to the middle school parking lot. All the way vined yellow flowers, that smelt of honey, and shrubs and trees that bent over the top, tickling Lovino's forehead and neck as he walked beneath them. "You have to get over it, Feliciano; we're here now." For however long it lasted. "Just do what you usually do to make friends. Fuck, stop eating that." He snatched the bread away, dropping it on the ground and wiping the crumbs on his pants. Feliciano whined at him. Lovino cut him off. "Four pieces of toast is too many."

They carefully walked down the small hill that landed them on the pavement of the elementary school. "Mama said that I didn't have to go," Feliciano protested quietly.

"That's because she's a dumbass, Feli. Just," he groaned, "just listen to me, okay? We'll talk about it after school?"

Feliciano agreed, but an overlying dissatisfaction was ostensible. Lovino sighed, too tired to deal with his brother's pouting. The two split ways. Feliciano went into the building, Lovino beside it. Pressed against the fence he quickly walked past the elementary's playground, kicking up dust on the dirt track that surrounded a spotted football field.

He ignored the feeling that settled in his gut. It happened the moment he saw a group of kids sitting outside the front, under a canopy where buses would pull up to. It made him stare forward, uncomfortably conscious of his hands, and think up a million excuses for—well, he wasn't sure. All the way to his classroom he felt it, and even there, as he set his stuff down and took a place at his desk, he felt displaced. He hadn't sat in the wrong desk, he wasn't late—the lack of other students sitting made him question his decision—and even though he was fully prepared he ran through a list of everything he _could_ have forgotten.

He didn't know how many students were in his class; not exactly. He was aware that there was an odd number when everyone was present, and he knew that they reached more than twenty. He had caught a few names, applied them to faces, but hadn't really talked to anyone. No reason to, he would be moving soon again, anyway. There was a boy that continuously tried to talk to him, but Lovino quickly chalked him up to be the weird kid.

When the day finally began, Lovino was able to relax. Italian Literature, Maths, Biology, English…these were his friends. They didn't change from location, and never were they dull, never expected an answer. They existed in the purest forms. Lovino could appreciate that.

* * *

"Wow, I can't believe you knew that!" the weird kid gushed. Lovino offered him a tight-lipped smile, the dimples in his cheeks straining. "Math has never been my strong suit. Do you think you could teach me?"

To answer or not to answer—it was a question Lovino dueled over in situations like these. He could brush this kid off with silence. It would make him look petty, a little bitch, but it would also keep interactions like these at bay.

"I don't need to," he gave. "The teacher ran through it well. Just follow her directions."

"But I don't get it!"

Obviously. Lovino had seen the kid's page before he had turned it in. Completing the Square, a simple mathematical process somehow twisted with what Lovino could only imagine to be the most pristine of miscalculations. Lovino clicked his tongue and looked away. He had answered enough for today, he decided.

"You could come over to my place later and teach me!" the boy continued, either persistent or oblivious. Their classmates dotted around them, some talking in pairs or groups, others trying to finish their homework before class was out. There was a buzz for the upcoming break that made everyone forget that they should be studying for next week's test. Lovino wasn't taking it, so he sat with his essay and _A History of the Italian Resistance._

"No, I'm busy," he dismissed, leafing through his dictionary. When he didn't know what to write he would skip to a random page and choose a word to incorporate. The constant distraction had killed his concentration. He flipped until he came upon the Os.

Between the constant chatting, he couldn't brush away the feeling that he was being watched. He ignored it. Or, his version of ignoring it—thinking about it until it drew him thin, mad. At the brink of irritation, he shot his gaze upwards. A group of girls stood in the direction he pointed his glare at, one quickly looked away.

Laura seemed to stumble her way back into the girls' conversation. Lovino gave her a once over. She wasn't much, common. Short brown curls held back with a ribbon and a plain set of features. Lovino's gaze settled on her for longer than he meant it to.

His irritation had boiled into curiosity. The thought of being thought of made him wonder whether he should be thinking of her.

* * *

The rest of the day he couldn't get her out of his head. Her green eyes went from something dull to something intriguing. He could feel a knotting in his stomach when he caught her staring, and had even found himself looking away sheepishly, now. He should have kept his cool, but somewhere he had grown nervous. Of what? He had no intentions of approaching her. He knew this, internalized it with painful distraction, but somehow the anxiety this girl set upon him sparked and flared the more he debated against it. An impractical emotion—if emotion was the correct term.

That night his father had come home early from work. Lovino knew that he had come home early because his moped was in the drive. Grabbing Feliciano's wrist Lovino pulled them to the backyard. Under the protection of the willow they sat.

Feliciano talked about his day. He focused on the aspects he did every day—the art, the food, the teacher. Never once did he mention his classmates outside of them doing something independently, as if the boy had somehow isolated himself from his classmates.

"What did you learn?" Lovino asked. Feliciano started on another rant about graphite—to which he had already been through—and Lovino cut him off. "No, what practical knowledge did you learn?" he demanded with a sigh. "Maths or Italian."

"Well, I," Feliciano started cheerfully. Suddenly his face dropped. "I haven't learned anything about those things," he insisted. "I don't think we talked about those at all."

"What do you mean you didn't talk about those at all?" Lovino glanced up from the stick he had been digging at with his nail.

Feliciano shrugged, happy again. "We just didn't talk about it. Oh, did I tell you about the kid in my class that keeps vandalizing the desks?"

Lovino stared disbelieving. Feliciano must have taken this as an active audience because he perked, telling the story more animatedly, drawing figures in the dirt to demonstrate what the kid had been drawing. Penises, of course. Feliciano laughed harder the more he talked, causing Lovino to sigh and simply let him be, throwing in his own joke or sarcastic comment every now and then, taking pride when Feliciano was rendered to a laughing ball against the willow's base.

"Where have you two been?" their mother demanded when they finally decided to go inside. Lovino brushed gravel and sticks from his trousers, dropping his bag by the front.

"Just out back playing." Lovino excused, steering Feliciano towards their room by the shoulder.

"Is dinner ready?" Feliciano asked, resisting his older brother's insistence.

Lovino could hear the chatting from the other room. He wondered banefully what group of lowlifes were gathered today.

"Dinner will be ready in a bit," she said.

"We're not feeding everyone, right?" Lovino asked pointedly. According to his father's aggressive screaming they were falling short financially already. They were always falling short, it was no surprise; Lovino agreed with his father when it came to money. They should be careful with it, put them first—but their mother wasn't of a survival mindset. She was too social, always inviting people over, offering them all she had, claiming them as brothers and sisters and friends. The only way to get her out of bed most days was to have someone come over. Friends came first, family came whenever the hell it was convenient.

"Don't talk to me with that tone," his mother scorned, a mean demeanor fixing around her features.

"We don't have enough," Lovino argued. "If you clean out the pantry now we're going to be out of food before the end of the month!"

"Don't talk about what you don't understand," she dismissed. "You're just a child."

"And you're just acting like a child!"

"Lovino," her tone told him to shut up, her rising hand enforced it. Biting his tongue, he cast his glare to the floor, attempting to dismiss the tears that had started at his eyes.

Leaving Feliciano behind, Lovino picked up his bag and found his way to his room. Passing the living area, he observed four different people. His father wasn't there, he must have retired to his office. Each one of their voices flamed his irritation, the fact that none of them even paid him any attention— _this was his house, he deserved respect in it_ —caused only a stronger vexation to grow.

Slamming his door, he threw his bag against one of the boxes. He was unreasonably angry—this happened all the time. Still, he couldn't help himself. His shoulders tensed, his breath lapsed, and his eyes watered and wanted to spill his ego. The room was too small to pace through, but he found a way, traipsing across the bed and back to the door, cursing out a box when it caught on his pant leg, making him almost trip.

He hated everything. He wanted to stop moving, he wanted to be able to have an evening without people coming over to party, he wanted his father to be happy and his mother to stop being such a witch. He wanted so much but he couldn't have it because he was just a child. He didn't feel like a child. He had opinions fully established, he was top of every class he attended, he knew how to balance finances and not be an idiot! So why was he stuck here, under the protection of an abusive drunk and a partying bipolar?

Palming his eyes and shoving his face in his pillow, he cried angrily to himself. "Well, if she's going to feed those bastards then I wont eat." The decliration sounded so good he went on. "I won't eat anything until they can get their shit together!" His father was just as much to blame! Always storming off after attempting to scream or beat his lesson into her without ever making any real difference. All he did was fuel her with gossip for the next day's gathering.

He broke his food strike, unable to keep himself from eating that night, as his stomach rumbled and the more he ignored it, the more he thought about it. He did eat with an attitude.

* * *

Friday came and Lovino reread his essay. Ten papers, some crumpled, others thin, but all of them beautiful. Looking at them, finished and ready, filled Lovino with a sense of accomplishment. He had stopped editing last night, deciding that if the teacher wanted something readable she would have given him longer than a week to write it.

Hurrying Feliciano to the elementary school, Lovino was determined to turn his paper in before the day started.

"Here you go," he said, a bit winded from his quick pace. He had slowed when other kids started to look at him, but ultimately remembered his mission before darting forward again.

His teacher, a beautiful young woman with what Lovino deemed to be gorgeous brown eyes, the shade of oakwood on an autumn day, he thought poetically, looked down at his paper without taking it. "Please be sure to turn that in stabled with a cover page," she said.

A great sense of shame overwhelmed Lovino. He hadn't thought about how unprofessional it looked. The smeared pencil and crumbled edges now looked ugly to him. "Yeah," he muttered quietly.

His teacher smiled at him. "Just be sure to turn it in by the end of the day."

During the moments when the class was studying or going over easy material, Lovino rewrote the whole essay on clean paper. All he had needed to do was make a cover page and staple it, but the more he thought about it the angrier he became. This was his work, it should represent him—or, at least what he wanted to be him.

Catching Laura during a short break, Lovino introduced himself. It wrought his nerves and made his palms sweat excessively, but he promised himself he would on Friday. Today was Friday. He would turn in his paper and talk to Laura.

Laura giggled at him. At first, Lovino feared that it was a mean type of giggle, and when she pushed his arm he royally flipped out inside, but when he turned to fall back to his desk—his safety—she continued the conversation. They talked until break was over. Lovino couldn't help but smile into his palm the rest of the day.

Finally, the time came to turn in his essay. His anxiety was at ease as he told the weird kid to fuck off (nicely, he was in a good mood) and walked up to the teacher. He slid the newly written pages onto the desk.

"Very good," she commended. "What did you write on?"

"The history between the Fascists and the Resistance in Italy."

"Is it persuasive?"

"No, it's just factual."

"Just?"

"Well, yeah. You said to write about something."

His teacher nodded. "You're right, but I was hoping to hear your opinions."

"Well," he said, getting a bit perturbed by her telling him that he had done it wrong. "I think the Germans and Fascists were fuckers that don't have any right to this country and that the resistance was fucking admirable."

"Language, Mr. Vargas," she sighed.

"What? I'm speaking Italian." She set him with a type of stare Lovino hated. He didn't know why he hated it, but he knew that he did. That was enough for him. "You ask me for ten pages for my voice, and yet face to face you shut me up?"

"Did you curse in your essay?"

"Give me about five minutes and I'm sure I could fit some color in."

She replied with a dignified sigh, something Lovino had grown accustomed to when he spoke outwardly to adults. It told him exactly where his place was. Balling his fist around his bag strap, Lovino straightened, puffing out his chest.

"See you on Monday," he said quaintly. He was not going to blow up and act like a child. If his essay was wrong because it was factual, then fuck her, and fuck everyone else. He was proud of it. No matter what his gut told him.

Coming out of the building, refusing to look at anyone, Lovino set his way towards home. The weird kid intercepted him.

"Hey, so you are coming over to my place tonight?" he asked.

"No, I'm busy," Lovino said, plagiarizing himself for the seventh time.

"Well, I'm sure you'll enjoy it! I a block away from that coffee place by the bridge. It's really nice, and the barista is a beaut'. We could hang out over the weekend! My sister just got her license, and I bet we could even convince her to—"

"Listen," Lovino drawled, "I'm really busy."

"With what? I'm sure we could find a way around it!"

He couldn't say studying, the kid knew he wasn't taking the midterms, and he wouldn't be able to blame it on his essay anymore. Family matters? Maybe someone was getting hitched this weekend.

He was promptly cut off as he started his lie. Laura came up to them, grabbing at her side and breathing heavily. "Lovino," she said. Lovino flushed at his name, brightening slightly.

"Yeah?"

"You have a brother, don't you?"

Lovino tightened his lips. "Yeah?"

"Fourth year?"

His response was getting redundant.

"Well," she hurried, looking over her shoulder towards the elementary school's playground. "I think he might be in trouble."

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTES**

 _Sorry this chapter took so long to get out. I can't write contemporary to save my life. I thought about just starting with the next chapter, but ultimately decided against it. I think establishing Lovino's character early on is important. So, I suffered, you're welcome._

 **HISTORICAL NOTES**

 _The text that I continuously referenced throughout this chapter is called_ A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance _by Claudio Pavone. It's a textbook that would NOT have been written in the timeline of this fic, as this is set in the 70s-80s, while the book was written in 2013. So, I apologize for that, but I don't speak Italian and couldn't find any Italian textbooks from the 70s that were translated into English._

 _The expert that was included was written in 1940s by a group of British and Italian resistance. It was published by Penguin; Pentad The Remaking of Italy._

 **COMMENT; FOLLOW; WRITE**

 _COMMENT! If you don't want me to respond because you're anxious or hate me (same) (jk, you the only one) just put three asterisks (***) at the beginning of your comment. And, if you're commenting as a guest, put some creativity into your name! Tell me your life's story in the how-ever-many-characters they give you. I love every comment-private, asterisked, or otherwise, no worries ;)_

Until we meet again.


	3. Between Angels and Insects

"In trouble?" he demanded, clenching his jaw as quick flashes of his mother ran through his head. His father was too professional to take anything out of the house—well, at least hopefully he would still be professional at this hour. Unless he had already managed to get himself terminated. "Where? How? What—"

Laura pointed in the direction of the elementary building. "My younger sister said the new kid's in trouble on the playground. I got worried that he was—"

He didn't wait for her to finish or for the weird kid's voice to cross the threshold of his opening mouth. The metal fence rattled violently, his bag pressing and scarping against it as he squeezed himself in between it and the elementary building. The dirt track picked up the second he reached it.

The playground was poorly financed. Perhaps even dangerous in the way rusted edges stuck out around the old metal slide and rickety structure; the way swing chains seemed to creak, even under the weight of gravity and nothing but. Lovino's eyes fell over them quickly, suddenly aware that not all trouble included people, and that his brother may have been stuck somewhere his fat ass couldn't get out of. It was almost a comforting thought, that.

Alas, the football field failed to end before the world proved him wrong.

Three goons and his brother. The sight twisted his stomach horribly. The lot of three were considerably older than Feliciano, more-than-likely high schoolers. Two of them Lovino didn't recognize at all, the third he identified as the girl that lived in the house by the fence. She stood back, her arms crossed over her chest moodily.

"He's just a kid—" she complained, though her tone was bored.

Feliciano stood in the middle of it all. He boasted a fresh bleeding scuff on his cheek, his olive skin flushed. He shook his head, hands outwards, chubby fingers flinging themselves about dramatically. One of the boys had him by his backpack, the other stood in front of him, stooping low to get in his face.

"He's a snitch is what he is."

Lovino swallowed, his nerves in his stomach and his mind steeling with anger. "Hey, coward shits!" He knew how to fight. Well, he knew how to punch. Well, he knew that if you punched just right you could cause a bruise within minutes, and if you punched wrong the bruise wouldn't form. Or maybe it was the other way around.

He dropped his bag, tensing his fists into balls, trying to quickly determine how the angle would work and where to punch to cause the most damage. The face would be a staple, but if he was able to get at least one of them winded maybe he could grab Feliciano and run.

The boy holding Feliciano looked up at him, the other one didn't even bother. "Piss off."

"Picking on a fucking fourth grader? I understand that you're planning on being degenerates when you grow up, but at least try to consider the _grow up_ part of that equation."

The other boy stood and the two of them shared a laugh, mockery. He had both of their attention now. Feliciano wriggled, but just as it seemed he would make his way out of his bag the older kid grabbed the nest of hair on his head.

"Funny. Real funny."

"Yeah, and who are you?"

The girl groaned with a roll of her eyes. "I'm leaving, Trev, don't bother coming by after you're done." She stalked off, pulling the long braid she wore over her shoulder.

"Dude, I think she just broke up with you."

"What? No she didn't. She's just hanging out with Stacy tonight."

"No, dude, Stac and Marco are hitting the overpass."

Lovnio stared, heart thundering, head wondering what was happening. Feliciano whimpered, his face scrunching up as the boy's grip tightened. Over the course of the conversation, _Trev_ , short for Trevoli, Lovino decided inappropriately, was getting more and more worked up. Lovino held a private hope that he would run after her.

"Fuck!" he shouted.

In what Lovino could only describe as a paroxysm of anguish, the boy turned around, catching Feliciano on the side of the head with a boxed palm. "This is all your fucking fault, you rat!" he screamed.

"Get the fuck off of him, bastard!" Lovino screamed, grabbing a fist full of the boy's hair, pulling as hard as he could. Before he knew it, the world was in stars, a new smarting pain blinking around the base of his nose.

"Hey!" The sound of relief. A woman's voice, followed by a woman's plump frame and gray hair, caused the two older boys to jump, muttering amongst themselves. Feliciano fell into sobs. Lovino blinked, cursed, and picked up his bag. "You two better run off," the woman said sternly.

Lovino grabbed Feliciano's arm harshly, pulling him towards their house.

"What the fuck did you do?" he demanded as they made their way up the small hill, checking over his shoulder and around every crevice of blindness to make sure they weren't about to be jumped.

"You—They—It's against—" he hiccupped through tears.

"Calm down and use your words, damn it!"

Feliciano balled his fists into his eyes, shaking his head. Lovino just openly growled, frustration mixing with the pain to concoct a gross mixture of tension.

* * *

"You're nothing but a useless piece of shit!"

Lovino slammed the door shut. The night air was a blessing, kissing his eyelids in a manner he imagined a lethargic flower petal would a settled pond. He drew the January air in desperately.

He hadn't exactly planned to come outside, but the best people were the kind that could adapt. Easily he picked his way across the yard and the street. Vined fences led him along a similar, secure path. This late at night he had to trust his feet and their direction. It was too early in the year for bugs or snow.

He found himself at the Elementary playground. Not a single sound offered him company. Lovino frowned deeply, his feet continuing to the dirt track. Alone he walked a while, his head picking itself apart from the shambles of anxiety his parents' fighting had put him it. It was troublesome to say the least.

Before long, shambles became patterns and organization, and Lovino's eyes were able to acclimate to the meager lighting, allowing him to watch his feet. Shoeless.

The last few days he had decided himself weak. There were lots of things that he decided about himself, so adding another thing to the list wasn't so appalling; but discovering that his weakness had not only put himself in trouble, but also his brother, made his head reel like very little else.

He was a man of action. At least, he wanted to be. He decided this a long time ago. Yet, in the face of engagement he had been weak. Unable to do anything against the likes of a couple of idiots. It made him question what else he was helpless against. The long list that awaited his head the nights prior was enough to form an encyclopedia.

So, he searched for a solution. It was an obvious one, he wasn't dull. He needed to get stronger. He was equipped mentally. At least, he was pretty sure he was. He had no qualms punching someone out if it meant protecting his family—and he would be lying if he were to say that his best dreams weren't steeped in the intelligent design of murdering some of said family—and he knew that everything held a consequence. Unlike the idiots he faced, he understood that the real world existed.

That left the hard part of the solution to be dealt with. The physical part. He wasn't sure if it was his genes or his awareness that kept his knees knobby and his biceps flat, but he was sure that neither of these things were helping his case. He was too skinny and weak to punch out anything but a pillow. His stamina was something from a horror story, and he had very little ability to do much aside from think on the day following the nights of sleeplessness.

The conclusion was drawn. Lovino drew one last comforting breath before his pace picked up into a jog.

He needed to get stronger.

Intelligence really didn't work with exercising well. As soon as his body flushed and his pulse accelerated, his mind was screaming at him to slow down. He ignored it. Well—he _ignored_ it. Slow down became splinters that were most definitely on the bottom of his feet which morphed into a sudden realism of how the cold air made the back of his nose painfully dry. It asked questions and made statements all set to convince and contrive.

Needless to go on, Lovino slowed half a mile in, cursing the salted taste of mucus that flooded the back of his throat. His feet throbbed, but he didn't want to go home just yet. He made his way over to the swing set. Sitting caused the loudest whine, shocking the silent air, and it did no stilling as Lovino gently kicked his heels against the bark chips.

Higher and higher he went until air streamed past his ears, causing the whines of the swing to only reach him when he was high enough to feel the structure of the swing-set wain forward or his body to violently rise from the seat, only to crash back into it.

It was a thoughtless sort of motion. He stared at the clouds above, pinpointed where the moon was hiding, a pewter halo and yellow center, his neck cramping upwards as he refused to look down and remind himself of reality. If only for a moment.

But, as all things do, all moments and happenings, the time passed and Lovino was sent back on his way home. All seemed quiet. He wondered how long he had been gone. The door was unlocked. Had they even heard it closed?

Feliciano was asleep, curled up in the comforter, still sniffling as if his dreams were harassed by the tension of the day.

Lovino sighed and laid down.

He was weak, but so was Feliciano. The best thing he could do to help his brother was to help his brother help himself. Men and fish.

* * *

"Uh—Hi, are you Mr. Mantee?"

The man turned from his chore on a dusted chalk board. "Yes."

Lovino cleared his throat. "My name is Lovino Vargas, you have my brother in your class according to the front office."

"Ah, yes, Feliciano."

"That's the one." He offered the man a tick of a smile, dimples barely encaged as he opened the binder he had come prepared with. "It seems that he has been having some issues in your class. I ran over some spelling and math with him yesterday after school, but he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. And he's never come home with homework."

The man seemed taken aback. Lovino blinked up at him. He flicked his gaze to the board. It looked to be a notes diagram. "I don't usually assign homework," he said simply.

"I think you should."

"I will take that into consideration."

Lovino nodded, finding the bit of the binder that he had decided to show off. Two pages stood side-by-side, one was a beautiful drawing of Lovino's house, the other was a written story about it. The grammar and spelling were beyond atrocious. "I'm sure you'll be able to find the issue here." Lovino said, handing it over. "You are allowing your students to spend too much time working on their art skills rather than encaging them in the lesson. Unless you teach them to spell house like that?"

The man sighed, barely glancing at the page before handing it back. "Your brother is a peculiar case. It's hard to teach him with his anger issues."

"His _what_?"

"I've had to put him in the back corner of the room facing the wall as his permanent seat. It seems that quiet is the only way I can get him to concentrate long enough to finish his assignments."

"You've had him for three weeks now!" Lovino yelled. "Did you not think about telling—" he cut himself off with a deep scowl. No, that wouldn't be a good idea. He shook his head. "Well, I'm very worried about his foundations." He tried to sound calm. No need to convince this man that anger issues ran in the family. "May I ask that you send him home with his assignments so that I may help him work through them? And can I get a copy of your year's lesson plan?"

"I plan by week."

"Can I get that then?"

There was a short pause. Lovino felt scrutinized. In the end, the man agreed. Lovino thanked him.

* * *

"Come on, Feliciano." Lovino bit. His hands were frozen to the point that they burned, stinging tears pricking his eyes as he jogged at a calf-killing pace. Feliciano wore the only gloves that they could find, and the red matched perfectly with his frozen cheeks.

"I can't breathe," he practically wheezed.

"You gotta just push through it."

"But—"

"No but's, Feliciano. At least try keeping this pace."

"It's too cold."

"It'd be warmer if you were moving faster. Come on!" Lovino was growing frustrated. He decided that this frustration was a part of his own workout. It helped put things into perspective of _now_. Which, was a good thing seeing that they were on break from school for the next two weeks before second semester started up. Now kept his head busy.

They made it a whole mile—though Lovino knew it was nothing short of an eighteen-minute mile at Feliciano's pace—before Lovino finally allowed a break.

"When we get home we'll go over your times table again."

"No! Can't we just play a game?"

"Not until you have the whole list of threes memorized."

"And then we can?"

Lovino groaned. He already had to water down his workout, and now it seemed that all the time he would have put aside for his own studying or recreational reading would be spent watered down as well. Nevertheless, he permitted to the compromise.

The day was quickly fading. The two boys picked up from the dry park and headed back home. Their mother sat in the den with today's entourage. Their father wasn't home. Together they sat down at the table. Lovino held a dwindling pencil over the chart Mr. Mantee had provided in a folder for things Feliciano could go over during the break.

"Three times one?"

"Three!"

Lovino nodded.

"Three times eight."

There was too long of a pause. Lovino slowly took his pencil down the chart until he landed on the number he wanted Feliciano to shout out. "Twenty-Four!"

"Remember how I got that?"

"Got what?"

"The answer."

"Oh, uh, yeah?"

Lovino sighed. The kid wasn't letting anything stick! "It's like—drawing a rectangle, okay? You start here, in the blank corner. You go three on the top—like this—and eight on the side. See? Now, go eight down with—"

"Oh, yeah! And then right here they meet. Like a gate. Have you seen the gate in front of that yellow house down the road, Lovi? The white one? Image how pretty it would be if the whole fence was that shade of white. Oh, and I was thinking, what if they put a garden—"

"Feliciano, we're talking about multiplication right now."

The boy frowned, closing his mouth. Lovino started again, but it seemed that he had lost the boy's willingness of attention.

He left before he started yelling.

* * *

Lovino scrubbed at his eyes. He was so tired. The den light was shut off above him. The wooden table was scratched terribly so. It looked like it could have even been caused by a dull knife or something of the sorts. He ran his fingers across every diversion to his fatigue, realizing his mistake only moments in when he began to understand that he wouldn't be able to stop until he had touched every scratch—but only once. If he touched one twice then he would have to touch them all twice.

It was late and he was tired.

His head swam with something of a poem to assess his situation of madness—as if a way to explain away his actions, excuse him of any fault. He would start it off with a sensory detail, perhaps. An introduction to the situation? Perhaps with the action in point-blank. The color of the wood in the poor lighting, the age of the wood, the trembling of his fingers and the dizziness of a blurring vision as exhaust attempted to find solace or remorse in the ceasing of the strings that carried his limbs forward and tied around his heart when he thought of a premature stop. Like leaving out a friend. A guilt.

He was tired and it was late.

* * *

Second semester couldn't have stared any sooner. Lovino packed his bag quickly, glancing over to make sure Feliciano hadn't fallen back asleep before leaving his room. It was dark outside, the winter growing harsher, grayer. He set his bag on the couch, taking in the comfort of the quiet and the chilliness as his coat lay on the floor at the backdoor and the fire had yet to be lit. The willow tree danced in the breeze.

"I wonder if we'll get an early snow." Lovino loved snow. Summer was grand, but there was something about the winter months that filled him with a different type of serenity. It was still and beautiful. Summer was a fever in comparison.

His mother and father still lay fast asleep. He had made sure to turn off the alarm a few minutes before it went off. He didn't need a morning he had yearned over the past two weeks to be ruined so quickly thanks to a few annoying beeps.

Feliciano sniffed as he made his way out of the room.

"You sound congested," Lovino said.

"I think I'm sick."

Lovino shook his head. "No, you're not sick. It's just a cold morning is all. You'll feel better after you walk around some more."

He sniffed again, this time a bit more dramatically. "I think all that running made me sick," he continued to press.

"Exercise actually helps the immune system."

"Not in the middle of winter."

Lovino frowned at him pointedly. "No, Feliciano. You are _not_ staying home from school."

"But I'm sick!"

A flash of trepidation. "Keep your voice down, idiot!" he hissed.

"I'm going to go ask Mom if I can stay home from school."

The declaration felt more like a threat. "Feliciano. No! She's going to be mad!"

"At you. She keeps telling you that you're not the boss of me, Lovino. So stop bossing me around."

"You're being a fucking retard!"

"Mom said to stop calling names!"

"Stop fucking crying! You're going to school whether you like it or not, Feliciano. You _need_ to focus on your god damn education! Do you want to be stupid for the rest of your life?"

"I'm not stupid!"

"Being aware of your ignorance and refusing to fix it is practically the definition of stupid, _stupid_."

"Mom!"

Lovino bit down on the fear that flashed through his chest. "Yeah," he muttered under his breath, not brave enough to say it much louder. "Go cry to the stupidest one of fucking all. Have fun being fucking homeless."

"Mom!"

Lovino clenched his jaw and grabbed his bag, quickly busying himself with re-getting ready. The younger boy disappeared with his tears and his qualms and his desperate cries for attention. Lovino quickly readied his defiance. His mother always took Feliciano's side. He was sweet or what the fuck ever people saw in fucking idiots.

Only, it wasn't his mother that appeared in the doorway.

"Do you need the fucking belt?" His father yelled, striding across the living room and hitting him across the face. Lovino fell to the couch, digging his nails into the cushion. His heart skipped and stopped, his throat keeping away his cries like a trusted safe. "We have told you not to talk to your brother like that! Now you have him in tears this early in the morning!"

"He's trying to—"

" _Don't argue with me_."

The fear wasn't enough to keep back the inner comments. It never was. Lovino was a man of action, even if the action was coming up with something to say, and even if he kept the words locked away in his head as a form of self-preservation.

"Your mother and I don't need to be woken up because you're being a bully, do you understand? I _said_ , do you understand?"

Lovino grit his teeth. His pride, or maybe his anger, played at the base of his collarbone a mighty tune of tension and defiance, but he knew none of those words could come out without the angry waterworks flowing along. "—Yes—" he finally choked.

His father was up and gone. Lovino grabbed up with bag, blinking furiously as he threw it over his shoulder. Feliciano stood in the passage way pensively. He took no issue with crying. "I—I'm sorry, Lovi. I didn't mean—"

"Shut up, idiot," Lovino growled under his breath.

"That's it, boy!" His father hollered, coming back from out of his room, leather strap in hand.

* * *

Lovino set his head down on his desk. Today would be obnoxiously slow. First days back always were. His education wouldn't be tarnished by a short nap.

"Morning!" someone said from above him. Lovino recognized the voice and decided to pretend like he was already asleep. The kid, soon enough, left Lovino alone to his own devices. He sighed into the table thankfully.

Class started. The droning of his teacher's voice was wonderful, and then it was gone, and then it was harshly in his ear.

"Mr. Vargas. We do not sleep in this classroom."

Lovino lifted his head, scrubbing at his eye. "Sorry," he muttered, not at all apologetic.

Class continued. He stayed tired.

When he looked back to see that Laura hadn't managed to make it to school, the part of his mood that had stayed high diminished.

Over the course of the first few hours, nonetheless, his body found a way to kick into that dazing energy that it seemed to always find a way to boot up. By lunch he was ready to hit the dirt track and continue his training.

"Vargas," his teacher called.

Lovino made his way to her desk, a ready excuse to why he had been sleeping at first ready. Though, she didn't ask. "So, I put in your paper for review."

Lovino blinked. " _Huh_?" he asked incredulously.

She smiled at him, small. "Your paper, the one you wrote before break?"

"Yeah, I remember that. What do you mean you _put it in for review_?"

"When your transcripts from your last school came in, I get a personal call from your last teacher—" Mr. Sweeny. He was kind of a ditz. "He had only good things to say about you."

"So, you sent him my paper?"

"Have you ever heard of the Centura, Lovino?"

Lovino responded with a shake of his head. "No."

"It's a private school in the UK. Very hard to get into. I have a friend who works on the board, and after the reference your last teacher provided I thought that I would send in an application for you. Now, I'm not sure what the rest of the board will think of you, but she wanted me to send you her praise—and with your grades as they are I don't see why you wouldn't be at least considered."

Lovino blinked. This was—It was news. "Are you allowed to do that? Take my work and just send it off like that? Don't you need a parent's signature or something?"

She chuckled. "If you get accepted, of course your parents will have to consent. But we're not there yet."

"We're not really much of—why didn't you tell me this would be for something so serious? I—I would have spent a lot more time on it." He furrowed his brows at her. Had she been hoping he would mishap his way to failure? No, that made no sense.

"If I didn't feel it was of a high enough quality, I would have given it back to you."

Lovino bit back a comment on the fact that her standards had to have been reduced after teaching year eight for so many years. Instead he just agreed.

The day continued, and Lovino found himself leaning into the palm of his hand for the majority of it. A private school in the UK? No doubt he would need to learn English. And didn't private schools cost a shitton of money? There was no way he was going to be pulling those types of funds out of his ass.

Nevertheless, it was a nice thought.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTES**

 _There are two types of readers that will pick this up, and one type will understand why writing this is so fucking hard_

 _Fun fact, I started a side story to help me get through this one! It is called_ Bury Me Alive _and it, too, features Lovino as the protagonist. Because that's what we all need more of: Lovino._

COMMENT! Are you guys for or against the idea of people using fanfiction as a way to write out first drafts? I mean, as long as the OOC warning is given, of course.


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